


The Truth Is Rarely Pure (and never simple)

by Nazezdha321



Series: Character Studies (sort of) [1]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Black Widow (Movie 2020), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Character Study, Feels, Happy Birthday mossintheconcrete, I'm ranting in the tags but you're reading my rants so who's worse, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, but she doesn't get them because she throws herself off a fucking cliff, but we wish she was because then she could come back to us, but we wish she wasn't because then she wouldn't have thrown herself off the fucking cliff, guess what time it is? that's right kids, i don't know how i keep getting into these tagging rants but here we are, it's reject russo canon but adhere to it anyway time, maybe the ridiculous tags balance out the angst, the author is a sadist, the author is not okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24817483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nazezdha321/pseuds/Nazezdha321
Summary: "Truth: a girl is born in Stalingrad.Truth: when she is just a child, her lungs fill with smoke as everything around her burns. Fire rages around her, and it's destructive ribbons of light fascinate the girl, the way it seems to spark so randomly, as if it wants to leap, to fly, caring not where it falls in its desperate attempt to rise to the ceiling.Truth: nobody’s worlds stop spinning even though hers ends. The end is not gradual, like she has been taught death is, but instead quick, a sort of cutting off the end of a line. But then, death is not the end of the world, just the end of one of its inhabitants.Truth: from that point on, she does not know what is true and what is a lie. What she does know is that it doesn’t matter. The truth is always a lie; a lie is always the truth.Lie: her name is Natasha Romanoff.Lie: her name is Natalia Romanova.Truth: she is not Natasha, nor is she Natalia.Truth: she is not quite sure who she is."OR, my birthday gift to mossintheconcrete <3
Relationships: Clint Barton & Cooper Barton & Laura Barton & Lila Barton & Nathaniel Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Cooper Barton & Natasha Romanov, Laura Barton & Natasha Romanov, Lila Barton & Natasha Romanov, Nathaniel Barton & Natasha Romanov
Series: Character Studies (sort of) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817902
Comments: 19
Kudos: 31





	The Truth Is Rarely Pure (and never simple)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mossintheconcrete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mossintheconcrete/gifts).



> I'm sorry.
> 
> (both for the fic, and the tags)
> 
> And thanks to Oscar Wilde for the title because I'm being dramatic today.

Truth: a girl is born in Stalingrad. 

  
Truth: when she is just a child, her lungs fill with smoke as everything around her burns. Fire rages around her, and it's destructive ribbons of light fascinate the girl, the way it seems to spark so randomly, as if it wants to leap, to fly, caring not where it falls in its desperate attempt to rise to the ceiling. The sound of her heart beating drowns the sound of the screams and silence hits her like a hurricane, but no wind or water could quell the fire quick enough for her parents to live. 

Truth: nobody’s worlds stop spinning even though hers ends. The end is not gradual, like she has been taught death is, but instead quick _,_ a sort of cutting off the end of a line. But then, death is not the end of the world, just the end of one of its inhabitants. 

Truth: from that point on, she does not know what is true and what is a lie. What she does know is that it doesn’t matter. The truth is always a lie; a lie is always the truth. 

Lie: her name is Natasha Romanoff. 

Lie: her name is Natalia Romanova. 

Truth: she is not Natasha, nor is she Natalia. 

Truth: she is not quite sure who she is. 

\--- 

Truth: she is a ballerina. She twists and turns, dressed in a leotard, tights, and a tutu, arms extending elegantly to the ceiling, eyes cast down but never unaware, music softly playing in the background. 

Lie: she is a ballerina. Certainly she twists and turns, but blood splatters across her imaginary tutu, and it is not music but screams that dictate her steps as her arms weave knives and guns and destruction. 

Truth: she has killed a little girl. Many of them, in fact. 

Truth: she is a little girl. 

\--- 

Truth: she doesn’t remember. 

Lie: she doesn’t remember. 

Truth: her memories are not her own. 

Truth: she is unmade. 

Lie: she is unmade. You see, you have to _be_ something to be unmade. She is nothing to no one. Her phantom face haunts those she has yet to kill, a premonition of sorts, but even if they try looking, they cannot find her. You have to be lost to be found.

Truth: shadows have no place in light, and she has a shadow of death. It wraps around her like a cloak she cannot take off, a constant reminder of what she is. It follows her, and only when she hides in the dark can she ignore its existence. 

Lie: someone will tell her that she “is _like_ a spider. You scuttle into the little corners, concealed by the shade.” 

Truth: someone will tell her that she “is a spider. You scuttle into the little corners, concealed by the shade.” 

Truth: to be _like_ something is very, very different than to _be_ something.

\--- 

  
  


Lie: she regrets leaving. 

Truth: it is not the running away, the leaving of nothing but dust in her wake, the trying to ignore the shards of her past cutting deeper into veins with every step she takes. No, it is not so much the leaving she regrets, but what she left behind. 

Truth: no Widow can have attachments. 

Lie: no Widows have attachments. 

Truth: the Red Room is no place for love. 

Lie: the Red Room has no love. 

Truth: the human nature is to love. She does not know this until it happens, and it nearly knocks her to floor when she realizes that this is what love is. This is what power is. In the poems Madame B read them, love is an alignment of the stars and the moon and the sun. In the books Ivan forced down their throats, any celestial alignment is the product of gravity. 

Truth: you cannot blame gravity for falling in love.

Truth: she had a sister. Yelena. With blonde hair always in a ponytail and a sharp gaze that cut worse than any knife, with lips that hint at a joyous smile that has never crossed her face, with a heart so big that nothing could tear it out of her chest, with hands suited better for pencils and paintbrushes than guns and knives. 

Lie: she had a sister. Yelena. With blonde hair always in a ponytail and a sharp gaze that cut worse than any knife, with lips that hint at a joyous smile that has never crossed her face, with a heart so big that nothing could tear it out of her chest, with hands suited better for pencils and paintbrushes than guns and knives. 

Neither: she did not go back for her sister. 

Both: she did not go back for her sister. 

Truth: madness, on the other hand. Madness is very much like gravity. All it takes is a little push.

\--- 

Truth: the boy with the bow and arrows showed her mercy. 

Truth: the boy with the bow and arrows saved her. 

Lie: she was going to kill him. She was going to slit his throat, or put a bullet in his head, or put her fingers around his neck and break it, or choke him and watch his eyes go dark. She was going to leave his body in the street, maybe take his bow and arrows, or maybe leave them there as a momento that not even someone who mastered the art of such an ancient weapon could defeat her. 

Both: she was going to go back for her sister.

Neither: she was going to go back for her sister. 

Truth: she did not kill him. 

Truth: Yelena stayed in the Red Room. 

\--- 

Lie: she is the Black Widow, KGB agent, assassin, murderer, spy, ballerina. Enough dead beneath her feet to raise an army. If espionage was Romeo then she was Juliet, only she poisoned him long before he had the chance to poison himself, because love was for children.

Lie: she is Natasha Romanoff, SHIELD agent, assassin, murderer, spy, a ballerina if that’s her cover. Maybe she’s a monster, for what else can leave so many bodies in her wake, or maybe she’s human, for what else can follow the devil so blindly? Monsters and men are two sides of the same coin. The only ones who know that are the ones who have seen both sides. 

Truth: she is _someone_. Or something. 

Truth: she is an assassin. 

Truth: she is a murderer. 

Lie: maybe that’s not such a bad thing. 

Truth: SHIELD thinks that’s not such a bad thing. 

\--- 

Truth: she saved the world. Someone’s world. Millions of people’s worlds, Clint’s world, Laura’s world. Her own is too far gone. It burned to the ground, and it was torn apart and then put back together over and over until very little was left of her parents’ intentions for it. 

Lie: she knows they had intentions for it. 

Truth: she remembers too little of her family. 

Truth: Clint remembers too much. 

Lie: she remembers the battlefield where bodies fell, the sound of canons breaking the sky open. She has seen armies descend upon one another in bloody disarray, and she has danced with death in such a display of violence that it will become a story that will live on forever. 

Truth: forever is a lie. All any soldier has is what's in between birth and death. 

Truth: she is not a soldier. She’s a spy. 

Truth: she remembers the streets of New York City, overrun with creatures she has never dreamed of. She has heard their battle cries, the wail of sirens, the sound of screams. She was a part of the six-man army that cascaded upon their thousands-strong swarm. She has danced with death so many times, and each time, she gets closer to letting go. She has felt the metal taste of blood in her mouth, the long cuts upon her forearms. 

Lie: she doesn’t have nightmares about it. 

Truth: but then, they all have battle scars. Some are more obvious than others, but all of them easily found with a little searching. 

Lie: she does not look for the scars of her fellow Avengers. 

Lie: they do not look for hers. 

Truth: they find them. 

Truth: they do not find all of them. 

\---

Truth: everything she thought she knew was a lie. 

Truth: it’s not the first time. 

Truth: she is _angry._ She is angry at HYDRA for infiltrating SHIELD and she is angry at SHIELD for not finding HYDRA. Her anger could light the world on fire, but it won't, because she's survived so many fires that she no longer knows if she is alive, or still burning. Her anger could light the world on fire, but her sadness would wash it all away. Her heart cracks and crumbles with the weight of another betrayal, another lie, another puppeteer who used her. This is the Red Room all over again. This is what she came here to escape. This is what she came to fight. 

Lie: she knows the difference between SHIELD and the Red Room. 

Truth: there is only one, small difference. The Red Room told their lies like what they were, and had no shame for doing so. SHIELD tells their lies like truths, and then passes them off as ‘white lies’ when those with a keen sense of smell sniff out the truth. 

Truth: there is no such thing as a white lie. Lies are dripping in blood, staining the skin those who tell them, and no such thing can be white. No such thing can be insignificant. They weigh on the soul, even though they fly off the tongue of those trained to tell them like stars fly in the sky. Or fall out of the sky. Really, what’s the difference between flying and falling? 

\---

Truth: Sokovia crashed to the Earth, overrun with robots and blood of both the innocent and the guilty and they called her a hero because she tore through metal and Earth and refused to leave the city when the people could not follow. 

Truth: innocent people are dead because of her. 

Truth: guilty people are dead because of her. 

Lie: she wanted to kill them, all of them, innocent or guilty. 

  
Truth: the Red Room wanted to kill them, all of them, innocent or guilty. 

Truth: she may never know some of their crimes, but she felt the jerk as she snapped their necks, the satisfaction of a job well done as they choked from poison, the cold metal against her skin as she fired a gun or raised a knife.

Lie: she’s a hero. 

Truth: she’s a hero from the perspective of many. Children dress up as her for Halloween, cheering in delight as they scamper from house to house. Networks beg to interview her, the only woman on the team until now (Wanda is still adjusting to her new life, Tony says at press conferences, and will not be giving any interviews. He tells them she won’t give interviews either, but they don’t stop asking). When someone is in danger, people think of her, of all of them: The Avengers, heroes of Earth. 

Truth: just because you’ve done something heroic doesn’t make you a hero. 

\--- 

Truth: her family tore themselves apart. 

Truth: both families. 

Truth: she doesn’t want to leave anyone. 

Truth: she has to. 

Lie: she’s okay. 

Lie: she will be. 

Truth: she has to be. 

\--- 

Truth: they tell her Thanos is coming. That if he gets the Infinity Stones, including Vision’s stone, he can wipe out half of all life in an instant with a snap. Her hand is against her side, and she makes a tiny snapping motion with her fingers, just to see. 

Truth: the first thing that goes through her mind is the efficiency of such mass destruction. No suffering, no pain, just… gone, and in less time than it took for her to walk forward and say, “Well then, we have to protect it.” 

Truth: she knows the only way to truly protect humanity is to destroy the stone. But she won’t tell them that, because they’re all thinking it anyway. She knows that it will come down to Wanda to destroy it and she’s afraid for her. 

Lie: she knows Wanda will do what it takes. 

  
Truth: she hopes Wanda will do what it takes. 

\---

Lie: everyone is gone. 

Truth: Laura’s gone, with her soft smile and iron will and sense of right and wrong. Laura, who hugged her close when she cried, who stitched up her wounds when she and Clint had too many of their own to do it themselves, who let a rogue Russian assassin into her home and let her help raise her children. Laura, who opened her heart to a stranger most would be inclined to kill and gave her a home, a family. 

Truth: Lila’s gone, with her kind heart and spellbinding laugh and bright eyes. Lila, who painted her pictures, who braided her hair for hours in the most intricate braids she could think of, who made bouquets of pressed flowers for her and mailed them to her house every Saturday. 

Truth: Cooper’s gone, with his gentle soul and energetic nature and clever sense of humor. Cooper, who built LEGO palaces for her, who made a paper chain from pages in which he’d written ‘I love you Auntie Nat’ thousands of times for her birthday - Cooper who had made up her birthday when she said she didn’t have one, only that she was born in 1984. 

Truth: Nate’s gone, with his enthusiasm and curiosity and tight, crushing hugs. Nate, who was named after her, who painted all the white pieces in the chess set red so they would match the checkers and be ‘Auntie Nat’s colors,’ who insisted on having chocolate cake for his birthday because that was her favorite flavor. Nate, who always told her to follow her heart, but now that it's shattered into a million pieces, she doesn't know which part to follow.

Both: Clint’s gone. 

Truth: Clint’s gone, but not the way Laura and Lila and Cooper and Nate are. 

Truth: that is not everyone. 

Truth: but it’s everyone to her. 

\--- 

Lie: they spend five years trying to undo what’s been done. 

  
Truth: she spends five years trying to undo what’s been done. She trains, harder than ever, pushing herself to her limit and further. She dances, as the music that once haunted her is now comforting, almost. She spends hours thinking up battle plans, down to the finest detail, preparing for every circumstance she can think of. She never sleeps. She visits the farmhouse once a year, on the anniversary of the day Thanos snapped. She cleans it up, dusting the furniture, tending to the lawn. And then she leaves, because she can’t bear it. 

Lie: she’s concerned for herself. 

Truth: she’s concerned for Clint. She went to the farmhouse a few hours after they left Wakanda, screaming for them. But she’s not a fool. Laura, Lila, Cooper, even Nate, they all knew to call her. She knows someone has left - there are weapons missing, money gone from the safe, a frame that once had a picture of the Bartons together by a lake has been smashed and the picture is gone. 

Lie: she looks for him. 

Truth: she doesn’t look for him because she knows that nothing she says will bring him back. Except for one thing. _We found something._

Truth: so she goes to her impossible solutions, trying to find a way to bring half the universe back, and her partner with them. 

\---

Truth: she finds something. 

Truth: she’s never been a religious person, but she prays. She prays she can bring everyone back. She prays to every god she can think of. She prays to every manifestation of the devil she can think of (she’s willing to make a deal with him if it brings everyone home). She prays that everyone comes home, even those she has never known, even her enemies. She prays that it isn’t at the expense of her friends. 

Lie: she prays that it isn’t at the expense of herself. 

\--- 

Truth: she tells them she'll see them in a minute. 

Both: a minute passes. 

\---

Lie: she dies the way one falls asleep. Slowly, and then all at once. It’s sudden, the ground rushing up to meet her, a last look at this beautiful purple-skied planet with it’s bitterly cold winds, and she hits the stone in slow motion. She feels every bone break in her body, each snap, each crack, but she doesn’t feel the pain because her nerves don’t have enough time to send the signal to her brain before she’s dead. She remembers she’s bound by love to her families, both of them, and they’re going to be okay. It’s her last thought. 

Truth: she’s dead as soon as she hits the stone. Clint’s face, his despair is the last thing she sees because she instinctively shuts her eyes. She can’t feel anything for that last five feet, only anticipation and adrenaline, but she’s not afraid, and she’s grateful for her Widow instincts then because she has never wanted to die afraid. The wind whistling in her ears carries away Clint’s sobs, carries away everything but that last thought. It’s a memory of Lila, Lila when she was little, Lila when she was innocent, Lila with her hair in two braids as she looked up at her father and asked,

“Did you bring Auntie Nat?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to my best friend, the Hawkeye to my Black Widow, the squid-quilter to my deep forest sky pixie, the chaotic aesthetic gay to my chaotic aesthetic idiot. Aaaah Mossy I LOVE YOU SO MUCH JUST HUGS OKAY
> 
> Anyway, I thought about giving you some fun adventurous Goose fic fluff but I decided to give you a flaming pile of angst that made V cry instead. Happy Birthday <3 I love you!!
> 
> (that's what Sanctuaria described it as, but I prefer to think of it as an emotional part-character study, part-me adoring Natasha and trying to explain her past to people??)


End file.
